AI Era Arrives, Figma’s Market Value Soars Against the Trend
This article delves into the fact that AI technology has not weakened collaboration platforms but has instead made them more scarce and valuable, redefining the value logic of the software industry. This article is sourced from a piece by Deep Tide TechFlow, organized, translated, and written by Dongqu.
(Background: The lawsuit against Anthropic unveils the AI shroud: plundering under the guise of social welfare, we are all responsible for the knowledge desert of the next generation.)
(Background Supplement: Musk’s AI enters the prediction market: using Grok to empower the trading revolution at Kalshi.)
AI Technology Is Not Eliminating Collaboration Platforms but Making Them Scarcer and More Valuable
Have you ever wondered why, in an era where AI can generate everything, a “drawing tool” is worth even more? On July 31, Figma officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange, closing its first day with a market value of $56.3 billion and a P/S ratio exceeding 60 times. In contrast, the average P/S ratio in the SaaS industry is only 7 times. This figure not only far exceeds the valuation levels of mature SaaS companies like Adobe and Salesforce, but it is also more shocking than Adobe’s $20 billion bid to acquire it two years ago. Even more thought-provoking is that this valuation comes amidst the outbreak of AI design tools, where ChatGPT can quickly produce design drafts and Midjourney can generate stunning images. According to conventional logic, when AI can automate design work, the value of traditional design tools should be diminished, but the reality is precisely the opposite.
Why are investors willing to pay such a high valuation for a collaborative design platform? What does this reflect about future judgments? As I delved into Figma’s IPO prospectus and analyzed its impressive data, including over $900 million in annual recurring revenue, a 46% annual growth rate, and a 132% net revenue retention rate, I discovered a disruptive realization: AI technology is not eliminating collaboration platforms but is instead making true collaboration platforms more scarce and valuable. This scarcity is redefining the entire value logic of the software industry and provides us with a new perspective for understanding the global technology investment landscape. In this redefinition process, some high-quality targets with significant strategic value are waiting to be rediscovered.
The Business Secret Behind Astonishing Data: Two-Thirds of Users Are Non-Designers
The most disruptive aspect of Figma is not its revenue or features, but its user composition: two-thirds of its 13 million users are not professional designers. This reflects a profound transformation in corporate collaboration methods—from process-centered to collaboration-centered systems. Figma is no longer just a design tool but has evolved into a cross-functional collaboration platform. In the AI era, companies are willing to pay for tools that “enhance collaboration” rather than those that enable “individual efforts.”
Let me first share a shocking statistic: two-thirds of Figma’s 13 million monthly active users are not designers. This means that product managers, developers, marketers, operations personnel, and even CEOs are using this software initially defined as a “design tool.” If you think this is just a natural expansion of the user base, you are gravely mistaken. This data conceals a fundamental transformation in modern corporate work styles and an upcoming paradigm shift in the software industry.
In traditional corporate workflows, design is a relatively isolated professional domain. Designers create in their specialized software, hand off the files to product managers for review, and then pass them to developers for implementation, before finally being promoted by operations personnel. This linear, segmented workflow was effective in the early days of the internet when product complexity was relatively low and iteration speeds were slower. However, in today’s era where product lifecycles are measured in weeks or even days, this approach has become a significant barrier to efficiency.
According to research by Deloitte, 57% of business leaders predict that AI will “substantially change” their companies within the next three years, but this change is not a simple substitution.
The shift in Figma’s user composition reflects an urgent need for immediate collaboration and cross-functional cooperation within enterprises. When product managers can annotate requirements directly on design files, developers can view design specifications in real-time, and operations personnel can quickly create marketing materials, the efficiency of the entire product development process undergoes a qualitative leap. More importantly, this collaborative approach eliminates losses and misunderstandings during the information transfer process, bringing the final product closer to the original design intent.
I find that this change in Figma’s user composition actually heralds a greater trend: software boundaries are disappearing. In the past, we were accustomed to categorizing software by function: design software, development tools, project management software, communication and collaboration software, and so on. However, with the development of AI technology, these boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred.
A superior collaboration platform no longer merely provides specific functions; it becomes the infrastructure that supports the entire workflow. The value of this infrastructure far exceeds the simple sum of traditional functional software.
From a business model perspective, this change in user composition leads to a fundamental optimization of revenue structure. Companies are essentially paying for management and collaboration, not just for tools for designers. Traditional design software primarily relies on payments from designers, which has a clear ceiling. But when two-thirds of users are non-designers, the platform’s scalability becomes almost limitless. Each company may have only a few designers, but the number of product managers, developers, and operations personnel is several times or even dozens of times that of designers.
This shift in user structure brings exponential revenue growth potential to the platform and explains why investors are willing to give Figma such a high valuation premium.
The Counterintuitive Phenomenon of the AI Era: Exponential Growth in Collaboration Demand
Many people believe that AI can weaken collaboration demand, but the reality is counterintuitive: AI enhances information complexity, compresses decision cycles, and introduces more non-design roles into the mix. Design is no longer about “creating one version,” but rather “immediate debugging of multiple versions.” Figma ensures brand consistency through design systems and has become a decision hub for intelligent collaboration. Collaboration does not simplify; instead, it upgrades to become one of the foundational elements of AI systems.
As I further analyze Figma’s strategic layout amidst the AI wave and changes in user behavior, I discover an extremely counterintuitive but logical phenomenon: the development of AI technology has not diminished the value of collaboration platforms but has, in an unprecedented way, reinforced their strategic position. The logic behind this phenomenon reveals a fundamental cognitive bias in our understanding of AI’s impact and provides important clues for judging the future direction of the software industry.
Traditional views suggest that when AI can automatically generate design drafts, write code, and create charts, the value of corresponding professional software and collaboration tools will diminish. This viewpoint seems reasonable: since AI can directly produce results, why do we still need complex tools and cumbersome collaboration processes? However, Figma’s actual data completely overturns this expectation. In 2024, Figma launched 180 new feature updates, most of which are related to AI capabilities, including automatic layout optimization, smart component recommendations, and design specification checks. The introduction of these AI features not only did not decrease users’ collaboration frequency but instead significantly promoted team collaboration activity.
The key lies in our understanding of the essence of “design work.” Design has never been simply about “generating graphics” or “creating visuals”; it is a complex problem-solving process that includes multiple stages such as understanding requirements, gaining user insights, formulating strategies, exploring solutions, integrating feedback, and iterative optimization. AI indeed provides strong support in the “solution generation” stage, allowing designers to quickly explore more possibilities, but this, in turn, makes other stages more important and complex.
When AI can generate ten design proposals, how do teams discuss the pros and cons of these proposals? How do they integrate user feedback and business goals to select the best proposal? How do they ensure that the chosen proposal can be correctly implemented and deployed? These questions all require stronger collaboration mechanisms to resolve.
AI technology has also compressed the timeline for design work. In traditional models, a design project might take weeks to complete, allowing teams ample time for gradual communication and adjustments. But when AI can quickly generate design proposals, the project timeline is significantly compressed, requiring teams to have higher instant collaboration capabilities. Asynchronous email communications and periodic meeting reviews can no longer meet this fast-paced work model.
The Need for Real-Time Collaboration and Quick Iteration Mechanisms
This requires a real-time collaboration, immediate feedback, and rapid iteration mechanism based on the platform. At the same time, this compression of timelines also presents a deeper challenge: while AI enhances efficiency and assists in content generation for various jobs, we are all aware that the biggest issue with AI is its tendency to make mistakes and lack precision. When multiple roles begin to use AI to quickly produce content, ensuring brand consistency and design quality becomes a critical issue. This is precisely where the value of collaborative design platforms lies—Figma ensures that content generation by different roles does not fall apart through online collaboration and design systems, guaranteeing the consistency of enterprise software, experiences, and branding.
Increasing Complexity in Design Decisions
Furthermore, the application of AI technology actually increases the complexity of design decisions. This complexity demands that teams possess stronger collective intelligence and decision-making mechanisms, and collaborative platforms serve as the vessel for this collective intelligence to function. The platform must not only support the diverse content generated by AI but also provide effective assessment, discussion, and decision-making tools to help teams make optimal choices among numerous options.
The Emergence of New Revenue Opportunities
From a business perspective, the growing demand for AI-driven collaboration creates new revenue opportunities for platforms. Traditional SaaS models primarily charge based on the number of users and usage time, but in an AI-enhanced collaborative model, platforms can price based on the complexity of collaboration, the workload processed by AI, the value of smart services, and other dimensions. This multi-dimensional value creation and acquisition model brings greater business imagination to collaborative platforms.
The New Logic of Platform Economy: From Function Stacking to Ecological Synergy
76% of Figma users utilize multiple products, not due to a plethora of features but due to strong collaboration. AI enables data, processes, and permissions to span multiple roles and scenarios, leading to increased switching costs as users delve deeper into the ecosystem. The number of clients paying over $100,000 annually surged by 47%, indicating that enterprises view Figma as a “high-adhesion collaborative platform” rather than a standalone tool. This represents a new paradigm for the moat of platform companies.
Key Characteristics of Platform Economy
In-depth analysis of Figma’s business model evolution reveals a key characteristic of platform economy in the current era: the collaborative effect of multi-products is becoming the core factor determining platform value, while traditional feature competition is gradually losing significance. This shift not only redefines the product strategy of software companies but also provides a new perspective for understanding the development rules of platform economy.
Shift in Software Consumption Patterns
76% of Figma users utilize two or more products, a seemingly simple statistic that hides profound changes in modern enterprise software consumption. In the traditional SaaS era, enterprises typically procured corresponding specialized software for each specific need: design software for design needs, project management software for project management, and instant messaging software for communication and collaboration. This “point procurement” model was effective in an era where functions were relatively independent, but in today’s deepening digital transformation, this fragmented software usage has become the greatest obstacle to efficiency improvement. Issues such as disconnected data, difficult process integration, and inconsistent user experiences have led enterprises to incur significant hidden costs.
Building a Comprehensive Digital Product Lifecycle Ecosystem
Figma’s multi-product strategy is essentially constructing a complete digital product lifecycle ecosystem. From the initial creative discussions (FigJam) to specific design execution (Figma Design), from development delivery (Dev Mode) to content marketing (Figma Buzz), from website building (Figma Sites) to presentation reporting (Figma Slides), each product covers critical aspects of the digital product development process.
Organic Collaborative Relationships Among Products
More importantly, these products do not simply stack functions but form organic collaborative relationships: ideas generated in FigJam can be directly transformed into design elements in Figma Design, components in Design can automatically generate code specifications in Dev Mode, and design assets can be seamlessly applied to presentations in Slides.
The Amplification of Product Collaboration Value
The value of this product collaboration is further amplified in the current context. AI technology makes the flow of data and smart processing between different products smoother, allowing user behavior and preferences in one product to be learned by AI and applied to experience optimization in other products. For example, color combinations and font pairings frequently used by users in Figma Design can be recognized by AI and automatically applied to template recommendations in FigJam. User code preferences in Dev Mode can influence AI’s layout suggestions in Design, and presentation styles in Slides can guide AI’s content generation in other products. This cross-product AI collaboration creates user experiences that traditional tools cannot achieve.
Exponentially Increasing Switching Costs
From the perspective of user adherence, the switching costs brought by multi-product usage grow exponentially. When users simultaneously use multiple related products, switching costs include not only the individual costs of each product but also the system costs of re-establishing collaborative relationships between products. More importantly, the “soft assets” accumulated in a multi-product ecosystem, such as workflows, collaboration habits, and data associations, are often more difficult to transfer than specific documents and settings. These soft assets constitute the platform’s strongest moat.
Growing Revenue Concentration Among Large Clients
I noted that the number of Figma clients paying more than $100,000 annually increased by 47%, reaching 1,031, and these clients contributed 37% of total revenue. This revenue concentration reflects the Matthew effect of platform value: the larger the organization, the more complex the cross-departmental collaboration needs, the more value it can derive from multi-product synergy, and the more willing it is to pay higher fees for that value.
The Impact of Organizational Culture on Collaboration
Large organizations typically have dedicated design teams, product teams, development teams, and operations teams, and the collaboration efficiency among these teams directly affects the competitiveness of the enterprise. Therefore, their perception of the value of collaborative platforms and their willingness to pay are stronger.
Changing Dimensions of Competition in the Software Industry
A deeper commercial logic lies in the fact that multi-product platforms are changing the competitive dimensions of the software industry. In the platform era, the core of competition has shifted to the integrity of the ecosystem and the efficiency of collaboration. Users are no longer solely concerned about the strength of a product’s functions but are more interested in whether the entire platform can support a complete workflow, provide a consistent user experience, and achieve seamless data and process connections.
Future Trends in the Enterprise Software Market
From the development trends of the global software market, I predict that the future enterprise software market will be primarily dominated by these multi-product collaborative platforms. This trend presents new strategic choices for all software companies: either develop into a platform, become part of a platform ecosystem, or face the risk of being eliminated from the market.
Unique Opportunities in the Chinese Market
China has a relatively large group of designers and an active digital economy, creating unique opportunities for local collaborative platforms. MasterGo, as the only domestic platform comparable to Figma, possesses technical strength, recognition from leading clients, localization advantages, and policy dividends. In terms of AI layout, it even started earlier than Figma, representing important strategic value targets.
Interesting Phenomena in the Global Software Market
When I shift my analytical perspective from Figma to the global software market landscape, I discover an extremely interesting and opportunity-rich phenomenon: although the United States has birthed benchmarks like Figma, the uniqueness and complexity of the Chinese market create a significant yet relatively independent value niche for local innovation. This niche exists not only at the market demand level but also manifests in multiple dimensions such as technology development paths, business model innovation, and ecosystem construction. Within this value niche, a high-quality target with significant strategic value is waiting to be rediscovered.
Scale Effects in China’s Design Software Market
The uniqueness of China’s design software market is first reflected in scale effects. China possesses a relatively large group of designers and an active digital economy ecosystem. From the design of product pages on e-commerce platforms to HMI design in the new energy industry, to the digitalization of enterprise systems, the design demands in the Chinese market are at the forefront globally in terms of quantity, variety, complexity, and iteration speed. This market environment provides rich application scenarios and rapid growth soil for collaborative design tools, while also imposing higher requirements on the tools’ performance, stability, and adaptability.
MasterGo’s Remarkable Development Potential
In such a market environment, MasterGo, as the only domestic collaborative design platform that can benchmark against Figma, has demonstrated remarkable development potential. From a technical architecture perspective, MasterGo has also adopted a web-native collaborative design architecture, supporting core functions such as real-time editing by multiple users, version management, and design systems. After years of technical accumulation and product refinement, MasterGo is now able to stably support large-scale team collaboration with hundreds of people online simultaneously, with individual projects supporting editing of up to 100,000 layers, achieving international advanced levels in performance and stability. More importantly, MasterGo also possesses privatization deployment capabilities, providing ideal solutions for clients in finance, government, and enterprises with high-security requirements.
Cultural and Work Style Differences Present Deeper Opportunities
Deeper opportunities arise from cultural and work style differences. Chinese enterprises’ organizational culture emphasizes collective collaboration, which is crucial for effective teamwork and productivity in a multi-product environment. This cultural emphasis on collaboration aligns with the multi-product strategies employed by platforms like MasterGo, further enhancing their value proposition in serving local enterprises.
Decision-Making and Cross-Departmental Collaboration
The cultural characteristics of decision-making and cross-departmental collaboration present unique demands for collaborative design tools. For example, Chinese enterprises are more accustomed to refining design plans through group discussions, placing greater emphasis on real-time communication and rapid feedback during the design process, and requiring design tools that support simultaneous online collaboration for large teams. At the same time, Chinese enterprises generally exhibit faster decision-making speeds and shorter product iteration cycles, necessitating design tools that can support high-frequency version updates and quick design changes. These demand characteristics significantly differ from those in overseas markets, and MasterGo has established strong product advantages precisely in these aspects.
Market Performance
From a market performance perspective, MasterGo has already gained high recognition from leading clients. Through the “Co-Creation Program,” MasterGo has deeply bound itself with top enterprise clients such as China Telecom, China Merchants Bank, Meituan, Baidu, and iFlytek. Within three years of its launch, it has captured nearly 80% of the corporate market share, with over a hundred leading companies paying for its services. This client base not only brings stable revenue sources but, more importantly, builds a strong word-of-mouth effect and industry influence. MasterGo’s NPS (Net Promoter Score) exceeds 50%, and 63% of users believe its experience ranks first, a level of user satisfaction that is quite rare in the enterprise software domain.
Payment Capability and Commercialization Potential
In terms of payment capability and commercialization potential, the Chinese market demonstrates enormous value creation space. I noticed an interesting statistic about Figma: although international users account for 85% of its total users, international revenue only constitutes 53% of its total revenue. This mismatch between users and revenue reflects differences in payment capability, payment habits, and value recognition across different markets. Chinese enterprises typically possess a strong willingness to pay and a high price tolerance for tools that can significantly enhance efficiency and competitiveness.
Especially in first-tier cities and leading enterprises, investment in professional design tools has become a standard configuration for digital transformation. This provides a solid market foundation for MasterGo’s commercialization.
Policy Environment Changes
Changes in the policy environment have created unprecedented development opportunities for domestic software. The implementation of regulations such as the Data Security Law and the Cybersecurity Law has transformed enterprises’ demands for software autonomy and control from an “optional” to a “mandatory” requirement. Particularly among key customer groups such as government agencies, financial institutions, and large state-owned enterprises, the use of software with independent intellectual property rights has become a compliance requirement. Figma has previously faced supply chain risks with Chinese companies like DJI, prompting many enterprises to recognize the importance of having self-controlled design tools.
As a representative of domestic collaborative design software, MasterGo not only fills this gap but also addresses enterprises’ core concerns regarding data security and business continuity.
Strategic Opportunities in AI
Moreover, there are strategically significant opportunities in the deep integration of AI technology and local demand. In terms of AI capabilities, MasterGo has demonstrated impressive foresight and execution. According to public information, MasterGo has acted quite swiftly in the AI wave, launching AI Coding Agent functionality for generating website code even earlier than Figma, and it is among the first software platforms globally to announce support for and expansion of MCP (Model Context Protocol). This proactive attitude towards AI technology application and rapid execution capability reflect the team’s deep understanding of technological trends and keen sense of product innovation.
The design needs in the Chinese context, the interactive habits of Chinese users, and the collaboration modes of local enterprises provide a unique data foundation and application scenarios for training an AI design assistant that “understands Chinese users better.” When this localized AI capability is combined with a powerful collaboration platform, it will generate differentiated value that is difficult for overseas products to replicate. Based on its deep understanding of the Chinese market, MasterGo has the opportunity to achieve breakthroughs in the localized application of AI capabilities, thereby establishing stronger competitive barriers.
Ecological System Perspective
From an ecosystem perspective, China has a complete and unique digital toolchain ecosystem. From collaboration platforms such as DingTalk and WeChat Work to various project management, code hosting, and continuous integration tools, the digital tool stack of Chinese enterprises differs significantly from that of overseas counterparts. A successful collaborative design platform needs to deeply integrate with these localized tools to provide seamless data flow and workflow integration. This integration capability within the local ecosystem is a core competitiveness that is challenging for overseas products to quickly establish, and it is also one of MasterGo’s important advantages over Figma.
Growth Potential in the Chinese Market
Most importantly, the Chinese market is still in the early stages of popularizing collaborative design tools, leaving vast growth space. Although leading internet companies and design institutions have widely adopted professional design tools, many small and medium-sized enterprises and traditional industries are still using relatively outdated design methods. As these enterprises deepen their digital transformation, the demand for collaborative design tools will experience explosive growth. During this growth process, platforms with localized advantages will find it easier to gain user recognition and market share compared to overseas products.
Strategic Value of MasterGo
Considering all these factors, I believe MasterGo represents a product of significant strategic value in the Chinese collaborative design software market. It not only possesses technical capabilities and product advantages similar to Figma but, more importantly, has localized advantages and policy dividends that Figma lacks. When Figma closed its first day at a market value of $56.3 billion, it established a clear value benchmark for the entire collaborative design platform industry. As the only platform in the Chinese market that can benchmark against Figma, MasterGo’s strategic value is waiting to be rediscovered.
Final Thoughts: Opportunities and Value Discovery
Figma’s success in establishing a value benchmark for collaborative design platforms heralds a transition from the era of tools to the era of platforms. The uniqueness of the Chinese market creates opportunities for local enterprises to overtake competitors. This is a crucial juncture where AI is redefining software value.
As I completed an in-depth analysis of Figma’s IPO, several clear points emerged in my mind:
- The reconstruction of software value in the AI era is taking place. We are at an important turning point in the development of the software industry. Collaborative platforms are not weakened by AI; rather, they become the key infrastructure connecting humans and AI, with value being redefined and amplified. Figma’s market value of over $50 billion is not only an acknowledgment of one company but also a rediscovery of the value of the entire collaborative platform sector.
- Technical architecture determines business fate. A web-native, cloud-first architecture holds decisive advantages in the AI era, which is more crucial than merely stacking functions. Companies based on traditional desktop software architecture, no matter how powerful their functions, will find it challenging to adapt to the rapid changes and collaborative demands of the AI era.
- The platform economy exhibits new characteristics. Successful software companies are no longer the providers of the most powerful tools but are platform enterprises that can build intelligent collaborative ecosystems and connect diverse user groups. Multi-product synergy, ecological integration capability, and user collaboration stickiness become the core drivers of valuation.
- The Chinese market presents unique opportunities. China has a relatively large group of designers and an active digital economy ecosystem. Unique work culture and rapid decision-making rhythms create differentiated advantages for local collaborative platforms. The policy environment’s demands for self-control provide historic opportunities for domestically capable platforms.
I believe this is a critical moment to reassess the strategic value of collaborative design platforms. Figma’s successful IPO clearly demonstrates the foundational value of such platforms in the digital era, while MasterGo, as the only product that can benchmark against it in the Chinese market, possesses significant strategic value that far exceeds the product itself. In an era where AI redefines software boundaries, as Chinese enterprises accelerate their digital transformation, and in a policy environment where self-control becomes a rigid requirement, MasterGo represents not only a product platform but also China’s strategic layout in key software domains.
True strategic value often lies in the pivotal moments of change. When the underlying logic of an industry undergoes fundamental transformation, those companies that grasp the direction of change and possess core competencies often become the important cornerstones of the new era. Figma’s success marks the transition of the collaborative software industry from the tool era to the platform era, and MasterGo is an important representative of China in this transition. With the deep application of AI technology and the ongoing growth of collaborative demands, the importance of such strategic assets will further highlight.
Related Reports
Financial Report: Meta’s Revenue Exceeds Expectations, Increasing AI Investments, Stocks Surge 12%; Microsoft’s Azure Cloud Profit Hits New High, Market Value Soars to $4 Trillion.
Bitcoin Mining Company Argo Blockchain’s Stock Price Remains Below $1, Nasdaq Initiates Delisting Process.
AI Privacy Crisis: “ChatGPT Conversations” Exposed in Legal Proceedings; Altman: I Fear Inputting Personal Data, It’s Hard to Know Who Will Access the Information.